Riccardo Sabatini: How to read the genome and build a human being

This week’s[1] TED talk is by savant scientist Riccardo Sabatini. His talk focuses on the complexity of information required to make a human being and how machine learning can be used to predict an individual’s features from their genomic sequence.

This talk is quite frankly… astonishing. For several reasons, a couple of which I am definitely going to, um, appropriate, in the future.

First, Riccardo is an amazing presenter. I’m not going to ruin a thing but his visuals and the mental imagery conveyed by his words are perfectly chosen. The teacher in me is both jealous and inspired. We are much more united than we are divided.

Second, the science he presents is cross-disciplinary andbreathtaking. And yet, he still appreciates the limitations and doesn’t overstate the conclusions as they stand today. Balanced and breathtaking? Unusual.

Third, he called his mom a 3D printer and somehow it makes sense and I am definitely stealing that bit.

Fourth, he brings it home beautifully with an uplifting message that has the TED crowd ready to join hands, sing Kumbaya, and save the world.[2]